Social Ruminations

It's All About Me

One idea in Chris' entry about Social Transparency and Latent Group Discovery led me to wonder about Facebook's broadcast of my activities.

The propagation of protests against the FARC in Columbia is an example of: "This is important to me, and I want you to know about it so that it is important to you too."

I am intrigued in a different mode, in which I post (or Facebook reveals what I have just done) something that may be only about myself, and I have no intention of influencing my network. (It's all about me.)

For a lot of what I say (or do) on Facebook, whether I want to admit it or not, I want my network to think positively of my actions. I want to be liked. (Who doesn't? It's all about me, right?) I am doing something not because I think my actions and words lead to the betterment of my group/network, not because I think the world would become a better place. I do many things (on Facebook) to feel good about myself.

Yes, telling the world about my up-to-the-minute activities is a way to be connected to my friends and families. It's easier for me to post about my day than for me to call my parents and siblings to chat.

When I post a status, "Jaime just saw the greatest bestest slasher movie," I want my network to think that I am the coolest guy. I am also recommending this movie. But, do I care that my network goes and see the movie, and love the movie so much that they too create a status update so that their own networks will all go see the movie? Naw.

On the other hand, a status, "Jaime is in pain again from eating a piece of bread" has an obvious secondary message. I am telling you about my pain so that you would ask me how a piece of bread could cause pain, so that I could tell you about gluten sensitivity.

Facebook makes it easy for me to feel good about myself. Oh, by the way, the same mechanism helps me stay connected to my friends and family, without having to write email (too much typing) or call (too much commitment). And guess what, if I feel passionately about something that I want to share with the world, I don't have to do anything differently. I don't have to do "more." All that I have to do is to be selfish, write about myself, and the world (well, first, just my friends) may discover that it is passionate about the same thing too.

Social Transparency and Latent Group Discovery

In March 2008, I participated in the AAAI Spring Symposium on Social Information Processing organized by Kristina Lerman (USC Information Sciences Institute), David Gutelius (SocialKinetics), Bernardo Huberman (HP Labs) and Srujana Merugu (Yahoo).  The event brought together a very interesting mix of researchers investigating social media and the dynamic, emergent communities that are enabled by these technologies.  Among the host of intriguing presentations, one in particular that caught my attention was given by Ed Chi from PARC. 

Ed leads the Augmented Social Cognition Research Group which is focused on systems that "enhance the ability of a group to remember, think and reason; the system-supported construction of knowledge structures by a group."  Ed's talk focused on insights derived from their investigation of the Wikipedia community and on a specific software component they've developed called WikiDashboard to enhance social transparency with the community.

The notion of increasing social transparency in the Wikipedia community amounts to providing greater visibility of community member actions in creating and editing the collective knowledge store.  By allowing anyone to easily view the actions taken by others in the community, the assertion is that this will result in an increase in credibility and trust in both the content and among the members of the community.

While listening to Ed's talk, I thought about the broader implications of social transparency and how social media technologies provide opportunities that lead to significant outcomes.  More and more we are witnessing examples of collective action in the real world that emerge from movements that develop initially online.  Take as a notable example the recent worldwide protests against the FARC in Columbia.  It all started from a small group of young people expressing their outrage on Facebook over using kidnapping as a weapon.  Little did they know their message would lead to a movement culminating in synchronized protests in 185 cities worldwide.

By increasing social transparency, we aid the process of latent group discovery, the discovery of hidden groups that share one or more attributes in common.  Facebook groups provide one mechanism for latent group discovery.  They allow individuals to form a group construct on Facebook and easily broadcast that construct to their social networks.  Whether or not it is successful in exposing a larger latent group is dependent mainly on how the group idea resonates and therefore propagates.  Many questions linger here about how various types of social media support latent group discovery which we will examine in the future.

What appeals to me about the pursuit of social transparency is its potential role in combating extremist ideologies and enhancing freedom.  Without a doubt, social media is being used already along these lines.  The Iranian blogosphere, for example, is providing a significant outlet for political expression and organization that is otherwise infeasible.  Yet I believe we have only seen the beginning. 

Latent group discovery is far from systematic in my opinion.  Technologies will emerge that aid latent group discovery and coordination in more dynamic settings such as disaster relief.  Such technologies will also enable greater political freedom I believe by allowing groups of individuals to quickly discover their shared outlooks and channel their collective energies toward positive change.  Consider the potential for such technologies in the Middle East.  Imagine the impact of an emergent group expressing their outrage swiftly online against extremist media messages from groups such as Al Qaeda.  Empowerment begins with group awareness.  And awareness can quickly lead to action.      

 

Crowdsourcing Cyberwar

On April 27, 2007, the Estonian government moved a controversial bronze statue of a Soviet soldier from its long-time resting place to a military graveyard outside the capital city of Tallinn.  The statue, which serves as a memorial to the fallen Soviet soldiers that battled the Nazis in World War II, has long served as a point of tension between the majority Estonian and minority Russian populations within Estonia.  For the Russians, the statue is a symbol of sacrifice and struggle.  For the Estonians, the statue represents occupation and oppression.  After 15 years of independence from the former Soviet Union, the government finally decided to take action to place this troubling symbol in a more remote location.  The reaction from the Russian minority was swift, with rioting and looting of downtown Tallinn that lasted for days.  Along with chaos in the streets came the beginning of a protracted cyberriot known now as the first Internet war.

For Estonia, the cyber-campaign brought negative consequences on a national scale.  Having rapidly accelerated into the online age, Estonians leverage the Internet in every aspect of life.  Therefore widespread denial-of-service attacks had significant implications.  The nature of the attacks at first appeared familiar but quickly morphed into a new phenomenon.  In contrast to cyberattacks of old, consisting of waves of botnets, this conflict exploited the anger of the Russian minority to exact revenge online at scale. 

At the start of the conflict, posts appeared in Russian-language websites, discussion groups and blogs about the recent events and ways to respond.  With a combination of hate speech and instructions on how to launch a denial-of-service attack, average citizens were called to the battle and provided cyberweapons to participate.  As the campaign continued, fresh posts in the blogosphere provided updates allowing the masses to adapt as the defenses attempted to respond to the attacks. 

The Estonian Internet war provides the first example of a new type of warfare that leverages social media to exploit societal tensions and dramatically reduce the barriers to participation in conflict online.  With the assistance and guidance of likely a small number of skilled information technology specialists, cyberweapons were crafted and distributed online to anyone that wanted to participate.  They were crafted such that no special skills or resources were required to operate them.  With access to the Internet, anyone could join in the fight and express their outrage in a significant way with limited risk.  It is a masterful use of knowledge of the human terrain and the technological landscape in concert to exert significant effect.

Without a doubt, this will certainly not be the last time we witness this type of conflict.  With Russia's recent incursion into Georgia, a cyber-campaign was launched in concert with ground operations.  Although the Russian government once again denies involvement in the cyber-campaign, similar activities are being witnessed online.  Online forums are once again distributing scripts for executing denial-of-service attacks that have targeting lists embedded within.  Once again, a few with the necessary technical literacy are significantly lowering the barrier to participation so that the masses can express themselves through their actions online.